


The Case of the Missing Waifu

by Starship_Captain_88



Series: Stories from The Server [3]
Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Doctor Who, Original Work
Genre: Alcohol, Detectives, Gen, Love, Rescue, Rowing, Time Travel, punting, sculling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starship_Captain_88/pseuds/Starship_Captain_88
Summary: Moon and Yancey take on what looks like a standard "missing Waifu" case, but there is more to it than it seems.By the end of the job, they've had an adventure in time and myth.
Series: Stories from The Server [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755934





	1. SilverRose’s Waifu has vanished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moon and Yancey close their agency for a week because Moon has to do physio for her arm wound.
> 
> Yancey starts to get stir crazy. Moon persuades him to take on what looks like a dull "missing Waifu" case.
> 
> When they get the crime scene, they find there is something odd going on.

# The Case of the Missing Waifu

**The Case of the Counterfeit Spuds** turned Ms Moon Potato and Yancey 08620163#4336 into the most famous Kuudere Detectives in The Server, which wasn’t actually difficult as they were the only ones. There was a flood of interest in their services, but they decided to take a week off from detecting because Moon had to do physio for her arm wound.

The pair of them sat in their office in The Deep with the door locked, and ignored visitors. When the phones rang Yancey answered. He took notes but made no commitments. Moon bounced a tennis ball against the floor and wall, catching it on the rebound, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Again and again and again.

Again and again and again.

Yancey leafed through old fashion magazines and cleaned his roscoe even though it didn't need it. He drank just enough rye and soda water to stay hard-boiled. But you couldn’t keep doing that forever. 

The Princess was out of The Server, busy IRL. He couldn’t go to the Casino to gamble, nor to NSFW for the Catgirls, and he had nothing else to do.

Yancey began to get bored. He craved action.

“Moon, I’m going stir crazy. It is okay if I go out for a spell?”

“Sure! Where you gonna go?”

“I’m gonna walk the mean channels.”

“Take care nobody’s following you. Those spud smugglers might have friends still in The Server. I want to go with, but my arm…”

“Yeah, I know. You’re doing good with your exercises anyway. Keep in there pitching and you’ll soon be fit.”

“Will you bring me back some pasta?”

“Whaddya want?”

“Fettucine Alfredo from Maletti’s, if it’s on today, otherwise some kind of pizza.”

“Sounds good. I may join you.”

Yancey checked his gat, cosh and brass knucks, and went out. He took the Up Server trolleybus to the Great Piazza. He hadn’t told Moon where he was going because he was still ashamed of not being forgiven by Saki. Yancey had hoped that solving the spuds case would redeem him, but he still lost all his plays.

Yancey crossed the piazza and went into the Scarlet Cathedral to consult the Oracle. 

“.8ball -- Is Yancey forgiven?” 

*Uncertain*

“Thanks a bunch.”

Yancey felt blue. He decided to walk back to The Deep and get the pasta on the way.

“Exercise will do me good. What I really need is a new case. A good chonky case which counts as a quest. Another quest would get me back in Saki’s good books for sure. This detective caper isn’t paying as good as I thought it would, and it keeps me away from my Princess.”

Arriving back at the office, Yancey found Moon had admitted a visitor. A tall member in a smart red trouser suit. Xe looked worried. Everyone looked worried who came into the agency, or scared, or angry.

Except the landlady when she came for the month’s rent. She looked implacable.

“Who’s this, Moon?” He gave her the carry bag of take-out Italian.

“SilverRose. Xer Waifu has gone missing.” Moon got out a carton and looked at it hungrily.

SilverRose and xer Waifu Mariella were the foremost lovers in The Server. Their spoonings and canoodlings were notorious. Mistress Kou had even intervened to get them to dial it down in the public channels.

“Tell me about it from the beginning, SilverRose. I’ll take notes while Moon eats.”

SilverRose and Yancey sat at his desk. He took a yellow legal pad from a drawer.

“I came back from the Casino and went to visit Mariella. She was gone. She didn’t take anything with her, not even her phone!”

“Phones can be traced.”

“What do you mean, Yancey?”

“I mean I’ve worked a lot of missing Waifu cases. Nine times out of ten, the Waifu don’t want to be found.”

“You’re so cruel!”

“Yancey isn’t cruel, it’s just his Aspect. He’s hard-boiled.”

“Thanks, Moon. Look, all I’m saying is I’ve done a ton of missing Waifu cases. I can’t go into details cause of client confidentiality. Let’s just say there’s not much left to surprise me.”

“You mean you’re not interested? Fine detectives you are.”

“Hey, Yancey, it won’t hurt to take a look. You said you were getting stir crazy. Say, get a load of their .waifuinfos.”

Yancey dropped .waifuinfo @ the two of them. It turned out SilverRose and Mariella were Husbando and Waifu and Waifu and Husbando to each other, and had no other Affinities. That’s pretty devoted.

“Yeah, you’re right as usual, Moon. OK, SilverRose, we’ll take the case. Our terms are 100 clams an hour plus expenses. That’s for both of us working it, cause we’re a team.”

“Yes. What are clams?”

“Coins. Have you got them?”

“Well, um, up at the Casino, I, er…”

“I know the feeling. Well. We’re Kuudere. You can pay us later.”

“I can’t thank you enough!”

“Time for thanks is when we’ve got Mariella back. Let’s go to the scene of the crime. Moon, are you carrying? You better be.”

Moon gobbled the rest of her pasta and checked her Beretta. Yancey grabbed the fingerprint and evidence kitbag. He was already packing heat.

They took the trolleybus to the Blue Home district, where Mariella hung out. Mariella’s cave was a typical 1LDK like most members live in if they’re not involved with someone, or wealthy. SilverRose had a key, of course. Yancey checked his rod and cosh were ready in his pockets, and pointed at xer.

“You go first, so she’s not frightened if she’s in there. I'll be right behind you. Don’t touch anything.”

The apartment was empty.

“SilverRose, I want you to sit quiet at the table while me and Moon work the scene.”

The detectives pulled on latex gloves and began to search carefully.

It looked to Yancey like a typical single girl’s pad. He’d been in some before, for exactly the reason you’re thinking. Yancey wasn’t a monk.

It was tidy, clean, with cute decorations like teddy bears and stuff, and closets full of girl’s clothes. Plenty of toiletries. A few pornos but nothing to make you raise an eyebrow. 

Yancey smelt the pillows. Two different scents. There was a bottle of scent on the dressing table. He took it back to the lounge and put it on the table.

Moon checked the kitchen and started to look around the living room area. 

Yancey went through the laundry basket in the bathroom. He found a crumpled blouse. The same scent as on the pillows. SilverRose looked sideways at him.

“I didn’t take you for a panty sniffer, Yancey.”

He fixed a cold eye on xer.

“Don’t get fresh, SilverRose. Scents are an important part of detecting. Here we’ve got one main scent which I bet dollars to dimes is Mariella’s. We’ll know for sure when we open the bottle. There’s a second scent in the pillows. I’ll bet that’s yours.”

He got close to SilverRose and took a sniff of xer cologne. It was the same as the second scent.

“What do you think, Moon?”

“No body, no blood, no sign of a struggle. But look at the couch.”

The cushions were disarranged and squashed, as if someone had been lying there. There was a smartphone on it. Next to the couch there was a low coffee table with a half-empty glass of sodapop and an open bag of potato chips. A straight up quality brand, not counterfeit.

“I gave those to her.” SilverRose’s lip wobbled.

Yancey smelt the couch. Very faint, but the same scent. He saw something metallic stuck down in the gap between the cushions. He eased it out. A kind of big pocket watch with a gold case. It had an awful lot of dials and winders. Swiss, probably. Lots of complications.

“Why would a girl have a watch like this?” He held it up to show them. “This is a rich old boi’s kinda watch.”

“I’ve never seen it before,” said SilverRose.

They laid out the various pieces of evidence on the table. The glass had a lipstick print on the rim. The colour matched a lipstick in the dressing table drawer.

“Say, Moon, as a dame, what’s your girl intuition tell you about this scene?”

“Mariella was waiting for a friend or someone. She got made up and put on scent, so probably the visitor was a lover. The lover was late. Mariella got bored of waiting and started to play on her phone. Let’s see the phone. Look, it’s _The Game_.”

“That means zip, we all play it.”

“But look at the screen. There’s something weird going on.”

It made your eyes hurt to look at it. Like all the wrong angles at once, crowding in from the edges. They quickly stopped looking.

Yancey opened the perfume and smelt the stopper. It was the same scent as on the blouse and the pillows.

They took prints off the phone, the glass, the scent bottle, the watch, and a couple of other items. They finished by printing SilverRose.

Most of the dabs were matches for an unknown member. Those had to be Mariella’s cause they were all over the place. The rest were from SilverRose.

The big watch didn’t have any prints on it at all.

“That’s odd! Let’s have a good look at this thing,” said Yancey, and passed it around for everyone to see.

It was a very large fob watch, the type that old-fashioned bois wear in their waistcoat pockets. It had far more dials and hands and winders than anyone needs, and strange calibrations which were difficult to read.

“Okay. Here’s my take on it. Moon is right. Mariella was expecting you, SilverRose. Everyone knows you and Mariella are lovers, so that’s a cinch. She got made up nice because the two of you were going to have some fun. You turned up late. Mariella was bored. She started playing _The Game_ to while away time. Something happened and she disappeared. Whatever that thing was that disappeared her, it’s got to have something to do with this watch, because it’s too out of place.”

“I already told you I came here, Yancey, so it was easy to figure that out. What’s the next move?”

He didn’t like xer attitude but xe was a client now, so he kept his trap shut.

“Yancey, hadn’t we better check SilverRose’s crib too?”

“You’re right. Don’t try to refuse us, SilverRose, me and Moon ain’t got the legal authorities but we got friends Up Server, if you follow me.”

“It’s OK. I can see you’re doing your best for Mariella. I want to help.”

They bagged the evidence and went over to SilverRose’s place. They found nothing, except that they confirmed the second scent was SilverRose’s cause xe had a spray bottle of it in xer bathroom.

“Look, SilverRose,” said Yancey. “I believe you’re on the level with us. Something weird happened to Mariella and you could be next in line cause you’re close to her. I want you to come and stay in the office. We’ve got a sink and a camp bed. Grab some stuff quickly.”

SilverRose put some clothes and toiletries in a duffel bag. They split the scene and took the trolleybus back to The Deep, changing twice to throw off any tails.

>>>>>

Back in her flat, Mariella woke up from a strange dream. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door just closing.

Mariella shrieked in fright! She ran to the bathroom and locked herself in.

“Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone? Where’s SilverRose, why is xe is so late?”

Nothing happened.

After a while, Mariella stopped feeling so scared. Maybe it was a trick of the light or something. She went back to the lounge. Stuff had been moved around. Her glass was gone. Her phone was gone. Her half-empty bag of chips was gone. She found it in the garbage along with two sets of latex gloves.

“This is seriously weird! This is scary! I’m going to SilverRose’s place.”

But SilverRose wasn’t there.

No-one was around in the channels. Wherever Mariella walked, it was like members had gone round the corner just before she could see them. She almost but not quite saw their heels disappearing.

The channels were full of strange chatter, like it was coming in from two far distant stations on long wave interfering with each other. She could nearly understand what was being said, then it faded away into gobbledegook and nonsense. It reminded her of the time she accidentally tuned into the BBC’s Test Match Special. A meaningless jumble of stuff about cake, no.19 bus and silly mid-off.

Mariella was too scared to go home. She was too scared to stay in the channels. She was too scared to go to SilverRose’s place. She didn’t know what to do, where to go, who to ask for help.

Then she saw a “missing member” poster pasted on a streetlamp. The face was hers.

Mariella fainted.

<<<<<

In the agency office, Yancey got all the evidence arranged on his desk. They sat and looked at it. The phone screen still hurt your eyes to look at. He said,

“We need a photo of Mariella. We got to make a missing member poster.”

SilverRose had a good one in xer wallet. Xe gave it to Yancey. He went down to the local print shop and got 1,000 copies done with a short piece of text and the agency phone numbers. He paid some n00bs 50 clams to paste them up everywhere and leave them in cafes and the Casino and so on.

When Yancey got back, they all sat and stared at the evidence. No-one could think of anything. He was hungry and opened his pasta, which had gone cold long since. He dug in anyway.

“Let’s try free associating,” he mumbled around a mouthful.

“What’s that mean?” SilverRose had never heard of it.

“It means we get drunk. That’s what the ancient Persians did when they had a difficult problem to think about.”

Yancey got a pint of rye out of his desk and poured three glasses. 

“I don’t drink hard liquor,” said SilverRose.

“Sure, kiddo. Better stick to coffee, then. It’ll boost your brain a different way.” Yancey poured SilverRose’s rye into his own glass.

The two detectives sipped, and felt the strong whiskey slide over their tongues and down their throats. It lay in their stomachs and glowed. Their brains began to work on different wavelengths.

After a bit, Moon said, “Listen, this is going to sound like something out of Amazing Science Stories, but what’s the main event in _The Game_ at the moment?”

“It’s time travel.”

“And what’s this watch thing look like? It’s like a watch but it’s not a watch. Maybe it’s a time travel doohickey.”

“You mean _The Game_ glitched when Mariella was playing, it spat out a time travel gadget, and that’s done something to her. I don’t buy it." He was fed up with cold pasta and pushed it away half finished.

“It’s a good idea. It makes as much sense as anything. I mean, when you look at her phone screen, it's screwy. That’s gotta mean something.”

SilverRose didn’t have any ideas so she said nothing.

“It's probably just busted cause she dropped it," Yancey argued.

"It's a good idea!"

"Okay, Moon. Let’s wait for the morning. Maybe something will turn up. If not, then I might start to believe your time travel idea.”

They rang out for Chinese food, and got ready to rack out in the office.

>>>>>

Mariella came back from her faint. She looked and the poster was still there and it was definitely her face on it.

“But I’m not missing! I’m right here. It’s everyone else who’s missing. What’s going on?”

There was still no-one in the channels. There was still alien radio in the air.

Mariella read the poster carefully. It offered a reward for anyone with good information about her. Apply to the MPY Kuudere Detective Agency (address and phone numbers.)

She had lost her phone. She had left her purse at her flat, so she didn’t have change for a pay phone. She decided the only thing to do was to walk down to The Deep and visit the detective agency herself. It seemed to take an age, but probably was about an hour. The sky got dark.

By the time Mariella reached The Deep, the office was closed. No lights on and the door locked. She rang the bell and banged but there was no answer. She couldn’t think of anything to do except lie down in the doorway.

“At least if anyone goes in or out they can’t help but stumble over me”, she thought. It was a long, miserable night but she fell asleep eventually.

TO BE CONTINUED...

© 2020 Starship Captain 88


	2. The Waifu Lost in Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moon and Yancey decide Mariella must have been jumped into the wrong timeline by accident and is lost.
> 
> They research time science to find an expert to help them rescue her.
> 
> Meanwhile, Mariella continues her search for someone to help her.

The next morning Yancey was up first, because for some reason he had a headache. He made a big pot of coffee, took four aspirin and a finger of rye, and ate half a carton of cold noodles.

“The detective business isn’t as glamorous as people think,” he complained. “I need to make a big score and get out. The Princess won’t like me doing this kind of stuff unless it pays well. I should be up at the Casino, rebuilding the Imperial Fortunes.”

Yancey began to feel better as the various drugs mixed in his body, though. He had a wash and a shave, and brushed his teeth. He tied his necktie with a neat half-Windsor knot and checked the fit of his waistcoat. His morale built up and he felt ready to face the day.

The others also got up and prepared themselves as well as the meagre facilities of the agency would allow them. They turned their noses up at cold noodles, thinking to grab a bag of hot bagels from a local bakery.

“Before we do that, let’s try an experiment," said Yancey. "Moon, you think this watch gizmo is a kind of time travel machine and it’s gone wrong, yeah?”

“Yep. Screwy I know but I can’t think of anything better.”

“Me neither. So, okay, let’s try magic.”

Yancey rubbed the watch against his left ear.

“What are you doing, Yancey?” asked SilverRose.

“This is the ear what got bit by Skyen/Holo a couple of months back, when we chased the moon together. She left some of her magic in it. I didn’t know at first, but Moon noticed it.”

Sure enough, pale blue sparks of mana emerged from the scar on Yancey’s ear. They flowed over and around the watch. Nothing happened.

“It was a long shot, anyway. Well, Moon, I reckon if this is a time machine like you think, it works by science. We’ve gotta study time science to learn about this thing.”

“How are you going to do that?” SilverRose wanted to know.

“We’ll go to the Palace. The Princess is real sweet on science. She’s got loads of discs and books about it. There’s bound to be some time travel stuff in there. We’ll get the low down easy.”

They put some useful gear into duffel bags and went out to catch the trolleybus Up Server. They grabbed a bag of hot bagels on the way. Yancey bought a bottle of good wine in case the Princess came home early and had to be sweet talked.

*****

Mariella woke up with a start and found herself inside the MPY Agency office. She knew because she could read the name backwards on the frosted glass of the door. But it was locked.

“Hello?”

No answer.

“How did I get in here?”

Mariella searched the small office. There was no-one around. There was a lot of stuff lying about, some of it hers. Her perfume bottle was on the desk, and a glass she recognised from her own kitchen. It had a lipstick stain on the rim. There was a dirty bunched up blouse, one of hers. Some Chinese take-away food cartons, mostly empty. A nearly empty pint bottle of rye whiskey. Some yellow legal pads with notes and pictures scribbled on them.

She read the notes, which went on about odd things like time travel and magic, and “Check the Princess’s stuff.” On another page was some writing in SilverRose’s hand:

_I miss you.  
I love you.  
I’m going to find you.  
Come back to me._

“Oh, what am I going to do?”

Mariella started to cry. She seemed to be alone in a mad world. She was cold and hungry. She had slept in a doorway. She had no Coins or resources other than the clothes she stood up in. All she had was a shred of hope and a message of love.

After a good cry Mariella began to feel a bit better. She dried her eyes and blew her nose. She found a glass and drank clean tap water. She reluctantly ate some claggy fettucine alfredo. She was very hungry and it was better than nothing.

She had a sponge bath in the sink and guiltily borrowed someone’s toothbrush, which felt kind of yucky but she dipped it in whiskey before and after, to sterilise it. It was better than furry teeth, anyway.

Finally Mariella refreshed her perfume. She felt a lot better now, even though she was worried her clothes might start to get a bit whiffy. 

She tried dialling her phone from a big old-fashioned Bakelite dial phone there was on the desk. Out of service. Odd! Perhaps whoever had got it had let the battery run down. 

She dialled the speaking clock. 08:37 and 30 seconds, pip, pip, pip. She couldn't remember any other numbers, not even SilverRose’s, because they were all in her phone's contact list.

Mariella thought what to do next. She could wait and see if the detectives came to work, or she could go somewhere and look for members she knew. She decided to be proactive. She wrote a note for the detectives and a note for SilverRose.

She got the brown paper bag from the Chinese takeaway and put some useful things in it. Suddenly she realised where she should go. The Palace, obviously! The notes made it clear the detectives wanted to research in the Princess’s science archive. SilverRose clearly was with the detectives too. If they weren’t at the Palace, perhaps the Princess was there and would help her.

With everything ready, Mariella went out to walk Up Server.

*****

SilverRose, Moon Potato and Yancey got to the Palace. Yancey used his passkey to summon the elevator. 

“How come you’ve got a passkey, Yancey?”

“Where you been living, SilverRose?” Moon was surprised. “I thought everyone knew Yancey is Waifu to Princess Onecornchippy. His other Aspect is the Frog Prince.”

“Yeah. I’m only working the detective agency for some Coins while I try to get back into Saki’s good books. My main job is supposed to be restoring the fortunes of the Imperial House by gambling. I can’t do that until Saki forgives me.”

Calling it 'The Palace' made it sound real fancy. But actually it was a good size modern 4LDK near the top of a swanky block. Even with the Imperial Fortunes in decline, the Princess couldn’t be seen to slum it. Her guardian provided her a very reasonable allowance.

They went in, and Yancey told the others to take their shoes off, because the Palace worked like a Japanese house. You left your outdoor shoes at the entrance. He gave them guest slippers.

Yancey put the wine on the dining table with a sweet note on a card, just in case the Princess came home. He tied a ribbon in a pretty bow round the neck of the bottle. Sometimes a hard-boiled gumshoe has to show his feminine side, even if there isn’t much of it.

He showed Moon and SilverRose the bathroom and kitchen facilities. They made coffee, and ate bagels with lox and cream cheese.

SilverRose wanted a shower, so xe did that while Moon and Yancey set up the TV and looked for useful reference discs. They came back with a pile.

“What’s first up, Moon?”

“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

They all watched the flick. It was pretty good fun but Moon wasn’t impressed.

“This explains a lot about time travel and how to use it, but really these boys are bozos. Their hearts’re in the right place, but they just get real lucky. We can’t just rely on luck and good intentions.”

“Also the technology is completely different to what we got here,” noted Yancey. “I mean a phone box, what nonsense. It’s all wet. What’s the next one, SilverRose?”

“Back to the Future.”

They watched the first one in the series; there were three altogether.

“We’re getting warmer,”said Moon. “The kid’s a nice boi but he’s just a kid. No detailed knowledge. This Doc character knows a lot about the theory and technology of time travel though. If we could get hold of his Aspect he would be a lot of help.”

Yancey was dubious. “It would be a difficult Aspect to assume. Let’s keep him in reserve and check out the next disc.”

“Don’t you want to look at Back to the Future 2, detectives?”

“We’ll come back to it in the future if we have to. Funny how that came out.”

The next disc was first of a big pile of Doctor Who. There were so many that they decided to take a break and set up a second TV to get through the research as fast as possible. It was time for some lunch anyway.

Yancey made a pile of sandwiches while SilverRose sorted the Doctor Who discs and set up another TV. Moon had a shower.

Yancey was worried if the Princess would get back soon. The kitchen was a war zone, the fridge was half empty, and the living room looked like a nerd festival. The bathroom wasn’t getting any cleaner too.

Onecornchippy had a touch of OCD and would either be horrified at the mess, or delighted at the opportunity to do a lot of tidying up. It could swing either way, and Yancey wasn’t too eager to wait and see the result.

He wanted to get the research finished, clean up, and clear out. He still remembered what had happened when the Princess was re-organising her audio collection into alphabetical order of the bands’ names -- Abba; Beatles, The; Clash, The; -- and got to the albums by The The.

Yancey watched several Doctor Whos and was impressed. This boi knew his time travel up, down and sideways, also his shtick was going around helping people, which was the basic idea of the detective agency. It looked like a real good fit.

“How’s it going, you two?" he called out. "From my angle this Doctor is the boi for us.”

“Boi? The Doctor is a girl!” Moon exclaimed.

“What? No, he’s not. What are you talking about?”

They compared research notes, and fast-forwarded through some more discs to confirm their findings. It turned out there were lots of Doctors, some of them bois and some of them dolls. Or it was one Doctor, and he changed sex when he 'regenerated' and came back to life after being killed. Also, being time travellers, sometimes Doctors from different eras teamed up with their other selves.

The whole thing was pretty confusing, actually. Even so, Yancey was convinced they were onto something.

“Look Moon, the basic point is that the Doctor is a kind of Kuudere space detective. He wanders the channels of space and time helping people who’ve got troubles. That’s what we wanna do. The Doctor has the straight dope on time travel. He'll figure out this watch gadget pronto.

“She. The Doctor's a dame.”

“Moon, you can be a girl Doctor. I’ll be a boi Doctor, and we can work together. It’s ideal.”

“We’ll have to nix the gats. The Doctor doesn’t like guns.”

“I want to come too, I can be a Companion.” SilverRose wanted to be included. Moon thought it was a fine idea.

“Sure, SilverRose. That’ll work well because the Doctor always has to explain stuff to her Companion. It will be a cinch of an Aspect for you. The Doctor has all sorts of Companions, even aliens. Pick any one you like and get started.”

“Moon, this is going to be a difficult Aspect for you and me. I’m gonna have a shower and think about how to manage it.”

Yancey thought about changing his Aspect. He figured the best way to do it was to return to his Frog Prince Aspect, which was English, then work from that to Doctor Who. It was probably too big a jump from a hard-boiled American gumshoe to a foppish alien British scientist in one go.

Yancey had a shower and put his detective clothes in the laundry. He hung up his trench coat and snap brim hat. He hid his weapons in a drawer.

Yancey got his Combat Accountancy tools out and worked with them for a while, sitting naked in his bedroom to get rid of the traces of his detective Aspect. He began to feel like the Frog Prince again. He began to think of The Doctor, and imitate his mannerisms. It was easier than he thought. The Doctor he had chosen was a somewhat diffident upper-middle class type, fairly similar to the baseline Yancy. Soon he felt it was time to get dressed.

He looked in his wardrobe and found a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. A good start. He put on burgundy corduroy trousers and a white shirt. He found a bow tie and tried to tie it. Not good. 

He tried to think himself slim and wiry instead of chonky and muscley. His hair began to grow out rather Eton floppish and darkened to mid-brown. The Aspect was starting to come together. He re-tied his bow tie neatly and went out to see how the others were getting on.

Moon was wearing an outfit of baggy trousers held up with braces, and a long coat. Her hair had gone honey-blonde and shoulder length. She looked the part. She looked pretty good actually!

SilverRose was dressed the same as before, but now she wore an expression of excitement and puzzlement, and her hair was metallic silver.

“Yancey, what in The Server are you wearing?” asked Moon in a flat northern British accent. 

“I’m wearing a bow tie. Bow ties are cool.” His accent was BBC English. He fiddled with his tie and smirked.

“Wow, you guys! It worked.” SilverRose was seriously impressed. “You’re both Doctors now.”

Yancey and Moon could feel The Server turning beneath them. They heard the clock chips ticking off the milliseconds. They sensed an odd wrinkle in the space-time continuum; it was close by. They went to the table. Moon picked up the pocket watch.

“It’s not a watch, it’s a time jumper. Is anyone excited? Cause I’m really excited.”

“What’s a time jumper, Moon?” asked SilverRose.

“I’m glad you asked. It’s basically a small time machine. They’re not very accurate, and they give a bit of a bumpy ride compared to my Tardis, but they are compact. Look at the size of this one.”

Yancey reached out to fiddle with the knobs, and Moon slapped his hand away.

“Oi! I was first.You can have a go when I’ve finished looking at it.”

Yancey shrugged and smiled and looked a bit helpless. “Age before beauty.”

“What does he mean, Moon?”

“My Doctor’s older than his. Pearls before swine, Yancey.”

“I was only going to suggest you look at the stochastic assymptator dial.”

“I was just about to do that, thank you very much.”

With a moderate amount of bickering the two Doctors came to the idea that the time jumper was last used with a destination setting a few seconds in the past.

“But it didn’t go with the passenger, who must have been Mariella,” said Moon. “She was projected into the past and now she is stuck there.” 

“That’s why we can’t find her. Her timeline is behind ours.” Yancey wanted to have the last word.

“Can’t we jump back with the time machine?” asked SilverRose. Moon was first to answer.

“It’s not that accurate. We would need to hit the precise microsecond. We should be able to cope though.”

“Have you got a plan?”

“We will have by the time we need it,” Yancey said confidently. “The other thing is that we need to work out a way to communicate with Mariella. That isn’t hard actually. We can just write notes and leave them in the places she is likely to go to.”

“How can she communicate with us, Doctors?”

“Our notes will tell her to write a reply,” explained Yancey, “and anything she writes will already exist in our timeline because it was created in our past.

“I feel so close to her!”

“That could be true, SilverRose.” Moon patted xer shoulder. “For all we know she’s here now, only one second behind us.”

Yancey was growing increasingly anxious about the return of the Princess.

“I say, everyone. We should get out of here, because when Onecornchippy comes back and sees this mess, there could be fireworks.”

“I don’t want you to get into trouble on my behalf, Yancey.”

“It doesn’t matter. Mariella is the priority. I’ve done lots of silly things and Onecornchippy has forgiven me, because she knows my heart is in the right place. It just takes a bit of time, sometimes.”

Yancey crossed his fingers on both hands for luck and waved them in the air. Moon wanted to move the case forward.

“SilverRose, where are the places Mariella likes to go apart from your two apartments?”

“She used to go down to NSFW sometimes. I never asked what for, in case I didn’t like the answer.”

“Well, _really_ , I’m not going down there.” Yancey feared to go into NSFW because of the Catgirls. “We should put notes in both your apartments, and here, and the agency office.”

“What if she hasn’t got keys?”

SilverRose objected.

“Good point. We had better stick them on the doors,”

Moon replied.

Even using taxicabs it took an hour to get all of this done. They found the notes Mariella had left in the agency, which proved she was alive and operating in their past. SilverRose was very relieved, though xe missed Mariella so much xe had to have a bit of a cry. Yancey gently offered xer his handkerchief, and xe blew xer nose.

“What now, Doctors?”

Moon answered quickly. 

“We’ll jump back half an hour, and go round the places we left notes, to see if there are any replies. We’ve got to take care we don’t bump into ourselves.”

“Is that dangerous?” SilverRose was excited but fearful about the prospect of her first time travel experience.

“It’s more that it’s embarrassing, really.”

*****

Mariella slogged Up Server on foot. Whenever she came to a trolleybus stop the trolley had just left. Not that she had any Coins for the fare.

There was still no-one in the channels, at least only the members just disappearing around corners like ghosts. The noises she heard were weird and spoopy. She tried not to listen to them. Test Cricket was mad enough when you heard it clearly. All those no.19 buses, and cakes. Polite applause.

Mariella was tired and hungry. She thought of going to her own place, then remembered she had rushed out and stupidly left her keys locked inside. She decided to go to The Palace as originally planned.

When she got there she realised her mistake. The main doors of the block were shut and she didn’t have an entry code. She rang the intercom, not expecting a reply, and didn’t get one. She sat down and leant against the doors and cried.

Suddenly she found herself inside the doors. It was as if invisible people had come out, opening the doors and letting her fall in. Mariella got up and went to look at the directory. The Princess’s apartment was on the fifth floor. The lift wasn’t working. She slogged up the stairs.

The Palace’s door had a note blutacced to it. Mariella grabbed it and read it eagerly.

***

Dear Ms Mariella,

If you are reading this note, it means our surmises about your situation are correct.

You are living in a timeline a few seconds or minutes behind actual Server time. This is why you can’t see anyone. They are ahead of you in the space-time continuum.

The reason this has happened is that you have had an accident with a time jumper.  
However, we have got the time jumper and we only need to zero in on your timeline and we can rescue you.

Please write a reply on this note and put the time. It will help us to locate you.

Keep your pecker up!

Moon Potato and Yancey, The Doctors.

After this was a tearful plea from SilverRose for Mariella to follow The Doctors’ instructions carefully. And “I Love You.”

Mad though it was, Mariella thought the time jump idea made a kind of sense. She checked the time on a clock in the lobby and wrote it on the paper. She put “Mariella was here” and her signature. Then she wrote a short love note to SilverRose. She sat down, leaning against the door, to wait for the detectives to return.

Suddenly Mariella found herself inside the apartment. There was a load of mess lying around, dirty plates, piles of video discs, all kinds of stuff. It was vanishing like fog or ghosts or something even while she looked at it.

There was a shadow going around the place like a murmuring whirlwind, sweeping up the mess. Mariella was scared and hid in a corner. Then she smelt SilverRose’s eau de toilette, and started to cry again. This was definitely a day for tears.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(c) 2020 Starship Captain 88


	3. A Visit to Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctors know their time jumper isn't precise enough to rescue Mariella from her separate timeline.
> 
> They have to think of a different plan.

Mariella slogged Up Server on foot. Whenever she came to a trolleybus stop the trolley had just left. Not that she had any Coins for the fare.

There was still no-one in the channels, at least only the members just disappearing around corners like ghosts. The noises she heard were weird and spoopy. She tried not to listen to them. Test Cricket was mad enough when you heard it clearly. All those no.19 buses, and cakes. Polite applause.

Mariella was tired and hungry. She thought of going to her own place, then remembered she had rushed out and stupidly left her keys locked inside. She decided to go to The Palace as originally planned.

When she got there she realised her mistake. The main doors were shut and she didn’t have an entry code. She rang the intercom, not expecting a reply, and didn’t get one. She sat down and leant against the doors and cried.

Suddenly she found herself inside the doors. It was as if invisible people had come out, opening the doors and letting her fall in. Mariella got up and went to look at the directory. The Princess’s apartment was on the fifth floor. The lift wasn’t working. She slogged up the stairs.

The Palace’s door had a note blutacced to it. Mariella grabbed it and read it eagerly.

*

Dear Ms Mariella,

If you are reading this note, it means our surmises about your situation are correct.

You are living in a timeline a few seconds or minutes behind actual Server time. This is why you can’t see anyone. They are ahead of you.

The reason this has happened is that you have had an accident with a time jumper.  
However, we have got the time jumper and we only need to zero in on your timeline and we can rescue you.

Please write a reply on this note and put the time. It will help us to locate you.

Keep your pecker up!

Moon Potato and Yancey, The Doctors.

After this was a tearful plea from SilverRose for Mariella to follow The Doctors’ instructions carefully. And “I Love You.”

*

Mad though it was, Mariella thought the time jump idea made a kind of sense. She checked the time on a clock in the lobby and wrote it on the paper. She put “Mariella was here” and her signature. Then she wrote a short love note to SilverRose. She sat down, leaning against the door, to wait for the detectives to return.

Suddenly Mariella found herself inside the apartment. There was a load of mess lying around, dirty plates, piles of video discs, all kinds of stuff. It was vanishing like fog or ghosts or something even while she looked at it.

There was a shadow going around the place like a murmuring whirlwind, sweeping up the mess. Mariella was scared and hid in a corner. Then she smelt SilverRose’s eau de toilette, and started to cry again. This was definitely a day for tears.

*****

Yancey and Moon were squabbling about whose turn it was to try the time jumper. They both thought it was a neat gadget and wanted to play with it.

“Doctors! Please!”

They looked at SilverRose in surprise.

“Sorry, SilverRose.” 

“We’re forgetting ourselves.”

“This is your fault,” Yancey hissed.

“Shut up, you numpty.”

They both smiled at SilverRose.

“Doctors, what’s our next move?”

“We’ll go around the places we left notes and see if there are any replies.”

When they got to the Palace, they found no note from Mariella, and their note was gone.

“Bingo! Someone’s been here.”

“Shut up. Can’t you hear the Princess in there?” Yancy was worried. There was a bustling and muttering noise inside. He looked glum.

“Onecornchippy is back. She may not have taken it well.”

“What can we do?”

“I need to make myself scarce.”

“Let’s get out of here and find somewhere to think about our next move.”

They went down to street level and walked to a greasy spoon cafe for some refreshments.

*****

Yancey wanted Earl Grey tea. He was annoyed they only had English Breakfast. He ordered toasted tea cakes and jam to go with it. It just irritated Moon.

“Stop making such a fuss, Yancey. We’ve got work to do.”

“I think better with a pot of decent tea inside me.”

“Doctors, what are we going to do?” SilverRose felt xe needed to keep their minds focussed on the issue.

Moon had been thinking about the problem of using a crude time-jumper.

“This micro-jumping with the time jumper is too difficult. What we need to do is find a way to jump outside of normal server time. We should jump into a Myth Time.”

“Yes, good idea, Moon!”

“What do you mean, Doctors?”

Yancey boisplained:

“A Myth Time is a bubble universe which runs on its own separate internal clock because it’s been created by a powerful story. If we jump into a Myth Time and get Mariella in there with us, it will resynchronise all of our timelines. We need to think of a myth with the most congruence to all of us. That will be the easiest to get into.”

Moon was cautious. “We need to get Mariella to increase her congruence and join the Myth Time. How are we going to do that, Yancey?”

“Pick the Myth Time first, then we’ll think about how to bring Mariella into it.”

“Alright,” Moon was thinking out loud, “What’s the most recent strong myth there has been in an event in _The Game_?”

“Wonderland.” said SilverRose. “Alice in Wonderland. It was a couple of months ago.”

“That’s perfect, SilverRose. That’s a good congruence already. First, we all played it. Second, it’s a British story and Yancey and I are both British now.”

Yancey was even more positive.

“My baseline persona, Yancy, used to live and work there. Where they published it, I mean, in Oxford. The author lived there. He imagined Wonderland in the countryside around Oxford.”

“Even better.”

“But Doctors, how are we going to get into Wonderland?”

“We have to get to the edge of The Server, where the channels are still plastic. Then we use our imagination to create the countryside around Oxford, since that was where Wonderland was first imagined. Yancey has to help with that, he knows Oxford in baseline reality.

“Yancey must describe it to us and we all help to imagine it. If we are strong enough, the blank channels will transform and become Wonderland. Then we jump down the rabbit hole. Mariella, who must become Alice, will jump down to us and she will be re-united with us in Myth Time.”

“The problem is how to get out afterwards,” said Yancey.

“We can get out with the time jumper. We just need to get ahead of Server clock time, then we will have been missing from The Server for a few hours. It won’t be noticed.”

Yancey thought about it.

“That will work, but before we can start, we have to communicate with Mariella. If she is to become Alice, she needs make herself as similar as possible to Alice. The blue dress, the pinafore, the Alice band. It’s all important. Everything that increases her congruence will help.”

Moon understood the point.

“SilverRose, you know Mariella’s wardrobe. Has she got any clothes like that?”

“Yes. She’s got a blue dress. It’s not the puffy skirt style, like the real Alice, though.”

“Even a bit of similarity helps increase congruence. The closer Mariella can dress to Alice’s appearance, the easier it will be to assume the full Aspect and get into the Myth Time.”

SilverRose knew Mariella’s wardrobe well.

“She’s got a kitchen apron which is a pale yellow colour. And several Alice bands.”

“That will do nicely.”

They worked out the plan carefully.

SilverRose went to get the Alice clothes from Mariella’s apartment. Xe also got a broomhandle. Xe hoped this, together with xer silver hair and red suit, would make xer look like a Queen of Hearts guard with a spear.

The two Doctors went to the agency office in The Deep. They prepared a flier to give Mariella the necessary instructions. It asked her to go to the agency office and read more instructions left for her there.

Yancey had it printed. He paid n00bs to distribute the flier around the channels. When he got back to the office SilverRose had returned with the Alice costume, and Moon had written out precise instructions for Mariella. She had thought out the next move carefully.

“Right. Now we need to wait and see if Mariella comes and collects her clothes. When she does, we jump back an hour to get to the edge of The Server ahead of her, to prepare the way.”

*****

Mariella hid in a corner until the whirlwind of shadows had finished clearing up the apartment. Things went quiet. She wanted to get out of there. It was too spooky seeing things happen that way. 

She went back down to the empty street and walked aimlessly, not knowing what to do. Then she saw another poster with her face on it, different to the Missing Member poster. This one specifically told her to go to the detective agency, so she did.

At the agency the door was open but there was no-one there. There was a bag on the table, with some of her clothes inside. As well as the Alice costume, SilverRose had thoughtfully included some clean underwear and a packet of sandwiches. Mariella had a wash and put on clean clothes and ate. She felt much better. Then she read the notes which had been put in the clothes bag.

*

Dear Mariella,

Here is the plan which will reunite you with SilverRose.

You are going to become Alice and visit Wonderland. We will meet you there and bring you and SilverRose back to the channels.

First, put on the new clothes and imagine that you are Alice. Walk to the east edge of The Server. When you get there, you will find Wonderland.

Cross the river and jump into the rabbit hole. We will be waiting at the bottom with SilverRose.

Write a note to tell us you have read this one, and leave it here.

It was signed by Moon and Yancy and SilverRose.

*

Although it sounded weird, it seemed as sensible as anything else which had happened in the past couple of days, so Mariella decided to do what the note said. She scribbled a note of her own to confirm, grabbed up her stuff, and left.

*****

Moon nudged Yancey.

“The stuff’s gone. She’s been here. There’s a note from her.”

The note confirmed that Mariella understood the plan and was following it.

“No time to waste,” said Yancey. “Let’s jump back an hour.”

“My turn, I think.” Moon reset the time jumper. They all three held hands and jumped through time. They took a taxicab to the East River, and went over on a ferry. Then it was time to walk.

After an hour’s trudge they had reached the ill-defined channels far from the civilised centre of The Server. 

“It was different when I was here with Skyen/Holo,” said Yancey. “It was wild and rugged.”

“Now you must make it like the Oxfordshire countryside, with rivers,” Moon instructed him.

Yancey began to describe the scene to them, as it appeared in his mind’s eye. The dreaming spires of the city behind them. The meadows and pastures, the woods, and the two rivers, the Cherwell, which he pronounced Charwell, and the Isis.

As he spoke, they all tried to envision the scene. Gradually the plastic channels assumed a new Aspect of reality.

They came to a river. There was a small wooden boat tied up from its stern, a tidy, sleek Thames skiff. Yancey climbed in confidently and shipped the blades. He handed first Moon, then SilverRose down into the boat. They sat side by side in the stern seat.

“I’ll scull you over,” he said.

“Row, you mean,” said Moon.

“No, this is a sculling boat. An oar for each hand, only they are not oars, they are sculls. If they were oars they would not be called oars, they would be sweeps or blades.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Yancey.” Moon couldn’t help teasing her partner. He took it in good part.

“Doctor, please would you cast off the line?”

Yancey deftly shoved off with one scull, and turned the boat to face the slow current. He sculled easily, being an experienced boater. It took only a few strokes to get to the other side, then he sculled along until they reached a good landing place. He enjoyed being on the river again.

“Um, Moon. Doctor, I mean, and SilverRose. I’m going to have to leave you here.”

“What! Why, Yancey, what’s happened?” Moon was concerned.

“I’ve become me. I put so much mental effort into creating Oxford and Wonderland for us, that it has claimed me. I’m not the Doctor any more. I’m not a Kuudere detective, or a Frog Prince. I’m just Yancy, a young boi who works in an office in Tokyo, who thinks he is dreaming. 

“I can’t go any farther. I’m not sure I can go back. Doctor, you and SilverRose must complete the quest without me.”

Moon saw in Yancy’s eyes that he was serious. She dropped .uinfo and .waifuinfo @Yancy. The infomatics were blank. As if he didn’t exist. She did not try to argue any more.

“We’ll complete the quest, Yancy, so don’t worry.”

Yancy nosed the boat into the bank. SilverRose and Moon clambered out. He said his last words to them.

“There isn’t time for long farewells. Just remember that you can go anywhere in this universe, and what you really need is a hand to hold.”

He shoved off with one blade. He backed water with the other, and took a stroke to get away from the bank.

As they watched, his boat began to change. It grew narrower and longer. It turned white. It became a narrow racing shell with metal outriggers and cleaver type blades painted black with a broad red stripe.

Yancy changed too. He became taller, broader shouldered and deeper chested. His hair got lighter until it was honey-blond. His donnish jacket and bow tie melted away, and he was wearing a form-fitting black and red all-in-one rowing costume.

Yancy locked the handles of both sculls together in his left hand to steady the boat, and waved at Moon and SilverRose with his right. They waved back. Then he put both hands to the blades, leant forward, came up the slide and dug into the water. He took a powerful stroke and disappeared in the mist.

Yancy had written himself out of the story.

Moon’s eyes pricked. She had to fight back tears. She and Yancy had been partners for a long time, and before that, she was his second real friend in The Server after the Princess. “It’s all down to me now”, she thought. “I must be strong and carry this through.”

*****

Mariella walked steadily towards the eastern edge, past the Scarlet Cathedral, past the Casino, past Social Media. 

The channels gradually became more plastic and ill-defined. They started to blur into greenery, the mellow pastures, hedgerows and fields of English countryside. 

Mariella herself changed. Her hair became long and blonde. Her blue dress plumped out its skirts with crinolines. Her cream colour apron became a white pinafore. She took on the full Aspect of Alice.

She came to a river, followed it downstream until she reached a footbridge. She crossed over and continued east, searching for the rabbit hole.

*****

SilverRose and the Doctor had no difficulty finding the rabbit hole since it was created out of their own imagination. They held hands and jumped in. The long float would have been fun if the whole situation was not so tense and worrisome. They reached the bottom at last.

“Now we just have to wait, SilverRose. Don’t eat or drink anything.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ve read the story.”

*****

Alice caught sight of the White Rabbit. She followed him as he scurried to the appointment for which he was late. He jumped into the rabbit hole and vanished.

She looked down. It was a long fall. She could not see the bottom. She plucked up her courage and leapt into the middle of the vertical tunnel.

She floated for ages until eventually she reached the bottom. There she found SilverRose, changed into a red uniformed soldier with a spear and a silver helmet, but she could recognise her lover anywhere. They flew to each other’s arms, burst into tears of joy of their reunion. They kissed and kissed, hugged and hugged.

“SilverRose, I’ve been so frightened and lonely.”

“There, there, Mariella, you’re alright now. I’ve found you.”

There was a theatrical throat-clearing noise, a girl’s voice.

The lovers split apart. Mariella saw a tall blonde girl smiling at her with sad looking eyes.

“This is the Doctor, Mariella. She and Yancey helped find you.”

“Where is Yancey?”

“He’s… gone.” Moon’s gaze was downcast.

“Oh nooo!”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Moon tried to look cheerful. “He’s gone back to his true home. Anyway, it’s time to get you home now. Hold my hand. SilverRose, hold Mariella’s hand.”

Moon reset the time jumper and pressed the button. There was a jerky movement, and they found themselves standing in a field in the hot midday sun. They could see the spires of Oxford in the distance.

Moon felt for the rhythm of the clock chips. Everything was normal. They were back on Server time.

“We’re back, but the time jumper’s run out of power.” She shook it, to see if the battery would spark back to life. “It’s probably a good thing. A gadget like this could cause a lot of mischief in the wrong hands. Anyway, we’ll have to walk from here. It could be worse. It could be raining.”

They set off across the meadow towards the trees which lined the riverbank.

*****

Yancy floated in the Myth Time on an imaginary River Cherwell, a foolish boi impelled by magic and dreams.

At first he just sculled. His mind was blank except for the parts dealing with balance and steering. He enjoyed the sensation of his body working, the rhythm, the run of the boat, the sound of water chuckling under the bow.

He sculled upstream, past Parson’s Pleasure, until he got to the weir, and the rollers where punters bring their boats down into the lower Cherwell. There he turned and paddled with very light strokes, to move as slowly as possible while keeping steerage way on the boat. The sun burnt the mist off the river. Yancy could see the dreaming spires of Oxford in the middle distance, and beyond them the hills, dotted with sheep.

He remembered his life there. Starting a new career. The terrible shock that summer, and the dark time that followed. Lots of hard work in the effort to forget. The unexpected transfer to Tokyo. The first meeting with Hikaru. “We were so surprised at each other!” He remembered how he and Hikaru began to grow close. “But that story is not finished yet,” he thought. “I have to go back and finish that story.” 

Nostalgia and anticipation pulled him in different directions. Yancy’s mind wavered as he thought about what he should do. His memory of Hikaru called him. He longed to see her again.

“Later. For now I have a duty. I have a duty to Moon and SilverRose and Mariella. I have a duty to the Princess. I started this quest. I must return to The Server and finish it.”

Yancy stopped at the Lady Margaret Hall boathouse. He lifted his single scull from the water, washed it, and put it on a rack. Someone would return it to the Academicals club in time. He borrowed a punt. He equipped it with paddles and seat cushions and two poles. Life jackets for the non-swimmers, though it's very hard to capsize a punt. He found a pair of Crocs lying around which fitted him more or less, and threw them into the punt.

By will-power he forced his rowing all-in-one to change into a white shirt and a blazer with black and red stripes. Baggy linen trousers held up by his jaunty striped club tie instead of a belt. He topped off his Aspect with a straw boater. He felt the Doctor in him again, and hoped it would be enough to find the way back.

Yancy stood on the deck in bare feet, the cuffs of his trousers rolled halfway up his calves. He shoved off and set a course downstream, poling his way towards Wonderland.

He punted downstream slowly, hoping to catch sight of three weary travellers. Eventually he saw them in the distance, and waved his hat.

They saw him and waved back. They started to run towards him.

Yancy brought the punt into the bank and tied up at a convenient spot. He climbed up and waited for his friends to reach him. 

Moon was first, because she wasn’t busy holding hands.

“Hello, Yancy. You came back!”

“Evidently.”

“Stuff you’ve got to do?”

“Yes. There is a certain amount of unfinished business.” He held out his hand.

Moon took it in hers, then hugged him close.

“Steady on, Moon. We’re British.” But he hugged her back.

The lovers arrived, and kissed and hugged Yancy, and thanked him. He took it in good part.

“Erm, I’ve got a punt here, actually. Does anyone fancy an hour on the river?”

They did.

Yancy took the punt upstream. They drifted in the hot air, on the cool water, in the middle of nature, as if they were drifting in a beautiful, idle dream. When the hour was up he moored at the Cherwell Boathouse, and took everyone into the bar.

“SilverRose, I know you don’t approve of drink, but I deserve a pint of beer.”

He was as thirsty as anything, after the exercise.

It went down in one long gulp, hardly touching the sides. The others had whatever they wanted, and Yancy had a second pint.

Then they walked back to The Server. Wonderland and Oxford faded behind them, vanishing like the dream they always were. Everyone’s Aspects grew weak. The channels became normal, filled with members going about their everyday lives.

They caught a trolleybus up to the junction of Blue and Pink Homes. SilverRose and Mariella parted and went their way, arms closely linked.

Moon shook Yancy’s hand again, and headed for her own place.

Yancy went home to the Palace, hoping that the Princess would remember the bottle of wine he had left her, rather than the mess.

THE END


End file.
